Who do you want to beat and why?

Being a challenger is often about looking outside your category, or direct competition and picking a more interesting battle.

An amazing (and yes even Olympic relevant!) example of this is Alysia Montano, USA 800m runner.

(Sorry to our American cousins who may well know the story already.)

As a young girl in Queens, Montano grew up playing rough and tumble games and running races against all the boys in her neighbourhood. Whilst the girls played with dolls, read girlie magazines and swapped makeup tips.

Montano never wanted to be hanging out with the girls; neither did she want to be seen as just one of the boys. So she started wearing a flower behind her right ear.

It was an amazing reminder to the boys, they weren’t just losing, they were ‘getting beat by a girl.’

And to the girls the flower became a very visible symbol representing strength in femininity;
“I think that a lot of people say things like you run like a girl. That doesn’t mean you have to run soft or you have to run dainty. It means that you’re strong.”

Suddenly win or lose the race, she was now fighting a much bigger battle.

Whoop go girls!